


Under the White Tiger

by ClaudiaFekete



Category: Percy Jackson and the Olympians - Rick Riordan, The Heroes of Olympus - Rick Riordan, The Trials of Apollo - Rick Riordan
Genre: Alternate Universe - Gods & Goddesses, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Chinese Mythology - Freeform, Enemies to Friends, M/M, Other, Past Character Death, Sort Of, Three-legged raven, enemies to lovers?, wolf - Freeform, 星宿, 玄武, 白虎 - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-06-26
Updated: 2019-12-04
Packaged: 2020-05-14 17:37:13
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,048
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19278160
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ClaudiaFekete/pseuds/ClaudiaFekete
Summary: "Anyway, the story I know is like this: there was ten suns. Everyday, a sun would fly into the sky and provide warmth for the earth. It was peaceful. Until the suns got bored."Nico leaned closer to the fire, staring chill into Will's eyes. His every word was precise and cut like a knife. "They decided to fly into the sky to play, all at once. Soon the ground started to burn. The trees whither and died in flame. People screamed in flame. There was no house left, no cattle, no food. Worst of all, there was no water. Those who lived wished they didn't with thirst killing them slower.""Then the great archer Hou Yi(后羿) shoot down 9 of the suns." Nico draw back to his own seat suddenly, tending the meat roasting on the fire. "They were dead, I suppose, but it didn't matter anyway. The world was blooming with life again. Praise the gods."  Will found his mouth dry, his hands cold."Hou Yi didn't kill 9 suns. He only killed 8." He whisper in the darkness. "But it didn't matter anyway."Solangelo Week 2k19: Day 3 – “God/Human”orDay Four - June 26: AU / Crossover





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Guess it's the first and the last Chinese Mythology AU you'll ever see for solangelo

  Honestly, Will never imagined being caught taking a bath by someone else than his brother.

  The day started as usual. Austin shook away as much water as possible before flying up to the sky, his wings broad and steady. Will picked the feathers out of the pool and sighed. Of all the three-legged ravens, Austin was the one who shed the most feather when bathing. Will loved his brother, but it's really a pang in the heart to be reminded that his brother soared in the sky as sun while his job is to keep this pool clean. Will could only shine at night, buried among thousands of other stars.

  With nothing else to do, he decided to get in the water himself. He should be now at the celestial gate if according to his job description, but that mission had long since be given to someone more, well, suitable. His medical study could come after bathing.

  He moaned a little when soaking himself in the pool. Even after like, two hundred years, the soothing water never failed to bring joints to his skin. Born as suns, all three-legged ravens had temperature higher than most of the deities. He remembered catching one of the whispers himself in the feast. Thank gods that they only had a grand gathering once every five hundred years. Most of the time he could just stay out of gossips and do whatever he wanted.

  The peace was interrupt by foreign voice ringing from behind. "You don't happen to be the keeper of the Sun Pool, right?"

  Will whipped around to see a short man standing behind him with a bitter expression. The man’s hair was short, dark as night. Later Will would have to admit that the stranger’s kind of handsome with his high cheekbone and surprisingly delicate feature, but what had caught his attention then were those short sleeves and the melancholy aura. Only slaves wore short sleeves, right? Then how come he gained the sophisticated phoenix pattern reserved to gods? Will transformed into his human form, a tan young man with gold locks (No other three-legged raven got golden hair like sunlight in their human forms. That's the only thing Will's proud of about his appearances). "Unfortunately, I am." He folded his arms. "What can I do for you?"

  The stranger growled. Will's eyes caught muscle beneath the black robe wrapping this lean figure. A warrior, Will decided. There were far more warriors than he cared to remember among immortals. Why did human need so much deities of war, anyway? Shouldn't their first priority be living since they had such limited time?

  "I'm told to be under your service for the next hundred years." He heard the clinking of chains. That's when Will noticed that the stranger had fetters around his ankles. 

 The gaze did not go unnoticed. "Oh, I got that for running away from the Lord of East Sea." He told Will in a flat voice. "Stupid dragons and their stupid wedding drove me crazy."

 "You ran away from Percy? Why would you be there at the first place?" Will searched his memory for more information. Percy, Lord of East Sea was said to be a rather friendly guy, lacking the arrogance that most dragons held.

 "A punishment, of course. Why else do you think a wolf would want to live in the water? I don’t even like the smell of ocean."

  “And what have you done to be sentenced there?” Will was getting kind of suspicious. He hoped the guy was just some clumsy idiot who had broken Jade Emperor’s favorite vase. If he had to deal with some jerk sentenced for sexual harassment, he would rather leave the pool himself for the next one hundred years.

  “I wiped out a whole city without really meaning to.”

  “What?” Will choked. With power greater than most livings, sometimes gods went out of control and made terrible mistake that affected the whole world. But, “How many did you kill.”

  “More than a thousand.” The stranger said it in a low voice, almost whispering. “Along with the girl I wanted to protect.”

   Something in his voice told Will that there’s a story behind the tragedy. Gods offered victory and fame instead of protection, not to say sheltering a human girl. It would make sense if the girl was a lover of the god. Even so, how come the girl, the object of protection, got killed with a god watching her back? Had she possessed some kind of treasure? Or she had been a witch so powerful that triggered the fear of some goddess? Will did not want to hear. He was once an ignorant god himself, arrogant enough to wipe out a village like pinching a flea. He had paid his price for it and did not want to be reminded of his own nightmare. “Your name?” He asked coldly.

  In a blink the man had regained his posture. Not a slightest trace of remorse was left. “I don’t see the need of intimacy here.” It’s impossible to read anything out of those bottomless eyes. “I was the wolf, the first under the White Tiger before being punished.”

  “And I am a brother of the sun, the three-legged raven, the fifth under the White Tiger." Tendrils of light emitted from Will as he glared at the wolf. "Now get out of here. I need no service of yours.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm desperate of suggestion. Feed some?
> 
> Reference time! With Chinese Character attached for anyone's further research.
> 
> Jade Emperor: Actually, the concept of “Jade Emperor([玉皇大帝](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jade_Emperor))” wasn’t developed so early. I have decided to use the name to represent the almighty, one and highest god people acknowledge at that time and pretend that he later became Jade Emperor (which is not true).  
> The Wolf: Nico is [奎木狼](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legs_\(Chinese_constellation\)) here. Forget everything you’ve read in “A journey to the West (西遊記)”. His other titles and positions will be unveiled in later chapters.  
> The Raven: Will is [畢月烏](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Net_\(Chinese_constellation\)) here. No existing document confirms that the raven here means the three-legged raven([三足烏](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three-legged_crow), also known as 金烏), which is recognized as the sun. However, it’s clearly written that one of his job is being the keeper of the Sun Pool(咸池). That, plus the need of later plots make me write him as one of the three-legged ravens.  
> Oh, and, three-legged ravens are collectively imagined as black as other ravens and crows. I have no idea what happened to the person who wrote that English wiki explanation. They probably get an ambivalent reference.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Will had a talk with his mother. We meet the cute pet Naomi kept.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Surprise! I've finally done the footnotes!

“I’m going to tickle you if you don’t wake up now, Will.”

The sound came unfocused. It was familiar, yet out of reach. A piece of cloth with its threads all loosened. Will swore he could see red wood swimming in the corner of his eyes. Was it a handle, or a bow? He couldn’t tell in this drunken kind of daze.

“And believe me when I say I’m going to steal all your molten peaches this time.” Another voice. Black hair splashing with green tip. Will could tell the strong aura this one was radiating. It’s not exactly intimidating, but it would be unwise to stay fearless before it. “The kind that only set fruit every two hundred years.”

Will deliberately propped himself up with his elbow.

Teasing laughter came right beside him. “Good. The dork is finally awake.” Rustling. Sounds of shifting, then-

he was met with his sister’s blue bell eyes.

Will couldn’t believe—no, he couldn’t process—what’s happening. His little sister was kneeling right in front of him, bright as a sun ( _of course, she’ s a sun. One should even phrasethat the sun was as vibrant and bright like her_ ). Her blond hair was woven into a messy braid, streaks of blue jumping up and down here and there ( _when had she decided to dye her hair blue? Last time he remembered it was decorated in pink_ ). Her red bow sat safe on her back, along with her arrows ( _dipped with the poison of_ _syunhuá [1], deadly to any mortal_). The almond eyes winked mischievously. Will blinked.

“Kayla?”

“Nah, don’t tell me you can’t recognize your own sister, Will. You shouldn’t be this thick.” The image flooded him before the other goddess came into his vision. A large black tortoise, chewing some nearby grass in a bored expression, didn’t make a move when covered by dark green skirt. Green, deep green extracted from the forest shone in those eyes.

Will’s eyes turned wide. Or at least he thought his eyes turned wide. The feelings, mini muscle cooperating into movements. It didn’t feel real. It _couldn’t_ be real.

“Lou?” He croaked.

Lou Ellen tilted her head. Goddess of magic, Lady of Winter, the Black Turquoise[2]. _One of your best friends._ “No need being this cold, don’t you think? It’s not like we haven’t met in a thousand years.”

 _Is it?_ Will wanted to scream. Found the strength to hold her shoulders and shake her. This should have be reality but it didn’t feel real at all. It felt as though he had been woken up from a dream only to be dragged into another one. The colors were too bright, too focused. Things seemed freshly washed as if they were new. _But nothing is new in the garden, in The Garden. It’s always shifting, a place for living and deteriorating and killing, with flowers that have seen the very first day of the universe, trees that were sprouted from the corpse of the ancient gods._

Through this brilliantly lit illusion he could hear and see Kayla speaking. “Please don’t just fall out of conscious right in front of us, again.”

_Falling out, falling down. Falling out, crashing down. Falling out, bleeding out—_

“Kayla why- ”

His surroundings torn into shreds before his eyes. The fine woven fabric, trees with leaves that whoever eaten can live more than two hundred years, his sister’s surreal but smiling face brutally distangled as if someone was cutting open a pig with an axe. Behind the scene was blurry darkness, vast gray cloud quietly floating still in twilight. Something…something was moving behind it, trying to break through.

Then it did break.

“Oh dear.” Will heard someone said before his sight was assaulted by blinding light—or it felt blinding because he was in pure darkness? “It’s such an accident, isn’t it?”

* * *

Being the child of the founder of the celestial garden came with its benefits.

Will started making a list while trailing beside his mother silently. Knowledge of plants. Herb best suited for potion.

Peaches. In another place it might be another fruit that inspired the longing of immortality. In this land, however, human whispered among themselves about the wonder one bite from the juicy, heart-curved drupe grown in Mountain Kun Lún[3] could do. _Just one bite._ You could always hear the dream like signing in their frail voices. _Then you can live until the end of time itself._

Will, the one who got to enjoy the earliest and last harvest thanks to his mother, never knew whether the fact was true or not. As far as his concern, it tasted good. That was good enough for him.

“I think there’s no need reminding you how close that was.” His mother paused for a moment to examine some moth orchids growing nearby. “You scared me, my bright little raven.”

 _I’m sorry._ Will wanted to say.

“It’s a stupid accident. It won’t happen again.”

There was so much in the glance his mother cast at him. Will winced.

“I’m just glad that Picki picked up the scent of you. I didn’t count you this careless, walking into the Garden without bringing mígǔ[4] along.“ A flower was plucked from the long stem. It weaved itself into the goddess’ silk robe, drowned in thousands of other brilliant blooms. Will’s mother held power over many domains and had many titles. Mother of suns was only one of them.[5] Naomi was how her children knew her. Sometimes it was hard to remember their warm and caring mother was among the most ancient gods who was powerful enough to craft the universe.

“What is bothering you? What is on your mind, my child?”

Will swallowed. Picki chose to land on his shoulder that precise moment as a happy, squeaking ball. He scratched theear-mouse's[6] fluffy head, deliberately not meeting his mother’s eyes.

The thing was, it wasn’t like a certain something was bothering him. It was several thoughts and memories long lost in time crawling their way back into his life. The encounter with the Wolf stirred up unpleasant things inside him. Past he longed to change. Nightmare that had never left him in peace.

If Will was being honest to himself, there were some times when he wished those events that had changed him into a more compassionate god toward humanity never happened.

Naomi sighed. “It might be optimal not to pull the strings, but if the that newbie they sent you-“

“Wow, no, mom. It’s fine. It has nothing to do with him. I haven’t seen him after he introduced himself.” Picki’s rabbit ears wiggled excitedly under his palm. “I barely remember he’s there somewhere most of the time.”

His mother’s face softened. “Well, that’s good.”

_Because whatever that is bothering you gets something to do with him._

Will couldn’t deny that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> By this time you should have realized that I'm NOT giving characters proper Chinese names just because it's a Chinese Mythology setting. Come on, do you think I'm going to give them meaningful names in Chinese only to translate those names into meaningless combination of sounds in English? This is a fanfic, not original work.
> 
> [1] syunhuá(薰華): It's a kind of plant, sprout in the morning and die at night. The original text mentions nothing about the poisonous property. I made this one up.  
> In _Classic of Mountains and Seas_ (山海經), the text is read "有薰華草，朝生夕死。一曰在肝榆之尸北。(There's a grass called syunhuá. It sprouts in the morning and dies at night. One says that they're on the north side of ganyú's corpse.)" in the section of _Classic of Regions Beyond the Seas: East_ (海外東經)  
> [return to text]  
> [2] The Black Turquoise[(玄武)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Tortoise): Now, now, the "Lady of Winter" is based on facts. As a god of North and of the color black, the Black Turquoise represents winter when placed into the four seasons. The god also represent water in certain circumstances. The "goddess of magic" part comes from PJO, just like, of course, the gender. In Chinese mythology the black turquoise is depicted as a man if not a snake and a turquoise intertwined.  
> [return to text]  
> [3] Kun Lún Mountain[(崑崙山)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kunlun_Mountains): In the Chinese mythology system, Kun Lun is kind of like what Olympus was for ancient greeks. It is the place gods reside and is synonym of all beauties and wonders.  
> [return to text]  
> [4] mígǔ(迷穀): Seriously, I have half of mind of translating it into "dizzy grain". That's basically the literal meaning.  
> In _Classic of Mountains and Seas_ , the text is read "有木焉，其狀如穀而黑理，其花四照，其名曰迷穀，佩之不迷。(There's a kind of tree, it has the shape of a grain and is black in texture. It's flower shines. It's called migu. Anyone who brings it with them doesn't get lost/confused/dizzy.)" in the section of _Classic of the Mountains: South_ (南山經)  
> [return to text]  
> [5]This, is purely self indulgent.  
> In _Classic of Mountains and Seas_ , the text is read "東南海之外，甘水之間，有羲和之國。有女子名曰羲和，方浴日於甘淵。羲和者，帝俊之妻，生十日。(Out of the south-eastern sea, between sweet water/gan shuěi, there's a nation of si hé. A woman named si hé just bathed suns in the sweet deep lake/ganyuan. Si hé, the wife of dìjyùn, gave birth to the ten suns.)" in the section of _Classic of the Great Wilderness: South_ (大荒南經)  
> The funny thing is, through out the whole _Classic of Mountains and Seas_ , you can only find dìjyùn born this and dìjyùn born that. Of course you can take this as "he's the emperor he has offspring all over the land". I, however, am taking this as "I doubt he really has any importance besides sleeping around." That's why Si hé-Naomi-is the one with much more power in this fic.  
> [return to text]  
> [6] ear-mouse(耳鼠): Have a peak at [this cute little creature](https://kknews.cc/news/v6848n4.html). The name "Picki" has no meaning in Chinese. In fact, I doubt it can be count as a Chinese at all.  
> In _Classic of Mountains and Seas_ , the text is read "有獸焉，其狀如鼠，而菟首麋身，其音如獋犬，以其尾飛，名曰耳鼠，食之不䐆(大腹)，又可以禦百毒。(There's a kind of beast that looks like a moose and have ears of rabbit and body of moose. The sound they make is like a howling dog. They fly with their tails. They are called ear-mouse/ěrshǔ. Anyone who eats them won't have to worry about abdominal bloating anymore. Also, by eating them one can gain defense against hundreds of poison.)" in the section of _Classic of the Mountains: North_ (北山經)  
> [return to text]  
> 


End file.
